Torrey Peters’ novel Stag Dance is headed to the big screen, Deadline reports.
The media company Run-A-Muck is developing a movie based on the novel, which appears in Peters’ 2025 collection of the same name. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Peters’ novel follows Babe, a lumberjack who attends the titular dance as a woman and discovers a new side of himself, while also sparking a rivalry with another logger. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the novel, “This could be a crackerjack short story, but it feels interminable at novel length. It’s repetitive, and the old-timey jargon loses its charm pretty quickly.”
Peters said in a statement, “Any novel that has the word ‘Pulitzer’ attached risks a staid adaptation—so I’m delighted that Run-A-Muck came with an opposite take: a blood-pumping, pulpy, thriller vision for the book—it reinvents the story in a way that makes me desperate to see what happens, truly magic considering how much time I’ve already spent with these characters.”
And Run-A-Muck co-founder Ilene Chaiken told Deadline, “Torrey has created a world that feels both mythic and deeply human, both intimate and epic, anchored by one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve ever encountered in fiction. Run-a-Muck is thrilled to be bringing this incredible story to the screen.”
Peters’ debut novel, Detransition, Baby, is also currently in the works as a film produced by the actor Tommy Dorfman.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
